


Amateur At War

by citrusfriend



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Autistic Tony Stark, Betrayal, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Wanda Friendly, Panic Attacks, Protective Tony Stark, Revenge, but i dont exaggerate what she did to make her seem worse either, not team Cap friendly, now with tony's reaction, sort of? it's implied, vision protection squad, what happened after wanda put vision in the floor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusfriend/pseuds/citrusfriend
Summary: Vision knew what a panic attack was. He had witnessed a few in his time with the Avengers, and his remaining code from his predecessor, JARVIS, had told him how to ground Tony during such moments.No coding could prepare him for experiencing one, however.





	1. Stranger To Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written Vision before so his voice is kinda.. nonexistent... Sorry bout that.  
> The work title and chapter names come from the song Mars by Sleeping At Last.
> 
> (this is unedited and i had issues deciding if it would be in past or present tense so this might be a grammatical nightmare sorry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We were so full of life  
> we could barely hold it in.  
> We were amateurs at war,  
> strangers to suffering."

Emotions were still a novelty to Vision. Each one left him feeling slightly breathless with _awe_ and _wonder_ and _exhilaration_ at the sensation of living. Even hurt and sadness was tinged with hope, because each meant that Vision _existed_. So in his single year of living, he accepted each emotion, each sensation, with open arms.

Fear was the first emotion he had ever wanted to reject.

Vision supposed that it was his openness that brought him there in the first place. It was his instant acceptance of the desire to be _understood_ that left him vulnerable to being _stood over_. Quite literally, it seemed.

Wanda and Clint didn’t hover over him long, though. Vision knew they had no reason to, especially since he was not certain they could even see him at the bottom of the crater, but it hurt nonetheless. He also knew he should chase after them, to glean information if not to bring them back, but he did not. _Could_ not.

Vision knew what a panic attack was. He had witnessed a few in his time with the Avengers, and his remaining code from his predecessor, JARVIS, had told him how to ground Tony during such moments.

No coding could prepare him for experiencing one, however.

“ _I can’t control their fear.”_

The entirety of his body felt simultaneously too sensitive to the dirt, rocks, and metal underneath where he lay and also _painfully_ numb. His breath, while technically unnecessary for his survival, was quick and shallow, yet he was incapable of regulating it. His chest felt far too heavy and each breath was painful and desperate.

“ _I_ _can’t control their fear.”_

Objectively, Vision knew that the view above him was the dozen floors that were broken from his forced descent, but he could not focus on it. Instead, all he could see was her _face_ and her _eyes_ and _“Vision. That’s enough, let him go.”_ There was no apology in her eyes, just determination and anger _._ His chest still felt far too heavy.

_“I can’t control their fear.”_

He thought he had loved her. Loved that he wasn’t alone in his powers, loved that she had helped him adjust to socializing, loved the slight twist of her smile, loved her potential, loved the idea of companionship, loved the way she made his chest feel light. But now his chest was _crushing him,_ just like she did.

_“I can’t control their fear.”_

Except… she could, couldn’t she? She controlled Tony’s to make him create Ultron, after all.

_“I can’t control their fear.”_

He hadn’t been afraid of her before. Not when he learned that she had willingly joined HYDRA for experimentation, not when he saw what she could do, not when he saw her precarious control, not when he saw _Tony_ afraid. He saw the way Tony flinched away from her, the way his breath shallowed whenever Wanda used her powers, the way his face turned ashen when Steve announced her place as an Avenger. But still, he thought that he loved her.

_“I can’t control their fear.”_

Even if she couldn't control their fear, Wanda could still control _them_. Just like she controlled Vision.

She had stolen his autonomy, and even if it was only brief, the memory kept ricocheting. He had been fine and then _“But she can”_ and then _his body wasn’t his own anymore._ There was the sudden loss of control, the feeling of Clint slipping through his unwillingly intangible body-- _“Vision. That’s enough, let him go. I’m leaving.”_ \--the feeling of his body compressing into itself and into the floor. Even now, with her away from him, he couldn’t control the way his body shook and the way his chest felt too _heavy_.

_“I can’t control their fear.”_

Except… she could, couldn’t she? She controlled his body, had forced him out of the physical dimension to left Clint escape before forcing him back into it and putting him through the _floor_.

Vision was afraid of her.

_“I can’t control their fear, only my own.”_

Vision wondered if the second part was a lie too. Because Vision certainly could not control the constant trembling throughout his body and the rasping keen tearing itself from his throat and the recoil the pushed him farther into the ground at the thought of facing her again. He couldn’t stop the pressure on his chest.

_“I can’t control their fear, only my own.”_

Vision wasn’t sure how long he lay in the hole, staring at the blurry ceiling at the top without seeing it. But once he finally managed to breathe fairly easily, despite the pressure of his chest, and pushed himself up onto his knees, he had a sudden moment of clarity.

_“I can’t control their fear, only my own.”_

She had been afraid of her powers. He had always known that. Vision had wanted to help her learn to control them in order to negate that fear, but he realized now that this wasn’t what Wanda had in mind.

_“Only my own.”_

Wanda was not going to learn control to stop being afraid. She was going to stop feeling afraid of losing control.

_“I’m leaving.”_

The weight on his chest _snapped_ , leaving a spreading burn radiating through his core and numbness in his arms and feet.

_“I’m leaving.”_

Wanda had seethed at the idea of house arrest, at the idea of being trapped. So why had she trapped him in a body he couldn’t control? Why had she confined him inside a body she had taken over when she had balked at being confined to a _building?_

_“I can’t control their fear, only my own.”_

That was fine. Vision was afraid enough for both of them.


	2. Every Broken Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There is goodness in the heart  
> of every broken man  
> who comes right up to the edge  
> of losing everything he has."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't edited either lol.  
> AllThisAndHeaven mentioned wondering how Tony would react, so uh. This happened. I was gonna have Tony go to Vision about it, but Tony seems like like the type to isolate himself so I decided not to. Maybe later.

Tony’s head was rarely ever quiet. In the back of his head, he was constantly stimming, constantly solving and creating equations and ideas and _planning_. It was second nature. Even in the rare moments when his anxiety was quiet, his head would be whirling, if only to keep himself sane. And so during the weeks Tony had to spend in a hospital bed after Siberia, he wasn’t truly _resting_. He spent his time refining his plans to send Ross to prison, mentally constructing the schematics for the next Iron Man suit, writing and rewriting amendments to the Accords, expanding his plans for a new water system, and rehearsing press releases. Anything to keep him from thinking about _why_ he was in the hospital in the first place.

Tony’s head was rarely ever quiet. But when he finally walked into the Compound for the first time since the so-called _‘Civil War,_ his brain seemed to shudder to a stop.

There was a hole in the Compound floor.

After a few horror-filled seconds, Tony approached the crater with painfully slow, but purposeful steps. It was _deep_ , with the edges of the floor torn ragged, and if Tony hadn’t been so used to flying, he would have gotten vertigo looking down.

_This must be how how the witch got away._

And with that thought, his brain started working again. Only this time, it wasn’t the frantic swarm of thoughts that were really only there to keep Tony from remembering the sound of vibranium carving into titanium-gold alloy. No, this was a scream of rage, of horror, of protective fury, because _how dare she hurt his child?_

Tony’s bandaged hands trembled at his sides and his breath grew shallow.

Wanda-no, _Maximoff_ had hurt Tony. But no matter how terrified the red glow of her abilities had left him and the angry smirks she sent his way that no one else noticed, at least she hadn’t hurt anyone else. At least Bruce had gotten away. At least she made Vision happy. At least she was good to the others. Tony was more than willing to let her drive him to near-daily panic attacks--and _oh, god_ the nightmares--if it meant that the team was more successful. If it meant more people were safe. If it meant his team was happy.

But _this…_ This meant that it wasn’t just Tony that she could hurt. This meant that Maximoff was willing to hurt Vision, young, innocent, _trusting Vision,_ who they all were so sure she would be dating within the month. And for _what?_ Just to get out into a world that was determined to imprison her at least, torture her at most? Just to fight against a document that none of them had cared enough to learn about before they were forced to? Just to fight against a document _none of them fully read?_

His chest tightened painfully at the memory. Tony was used to having pain in his chest, of course; first, it was Howard, with the fists he made sure never to use on his face, but so loved to hit everywhere else. And then it was with Yinsen, with the open-heart surgery and the car battery connected to his chest. Then the arc reactor in his sternum, always keeping him from breathing fully and the palladium poisoning that it had brought with it. And now, the shield slamming down into his suit and shattering his artificial sternum and all of the recovery that he was still working through.

But _this,_ this burning anguish for his child and the seething _hatred…_ God, it hurt and twisted in a way that left Tony wishing he was back in the goddamn cave with Yinsen’s hands in his chest.

At least then, he was in too much pain to realize just how helpless he was. At least then, the pain ended. At least then, he was the only one hurting.

At least then, it wasn’t his fault.

God, his chest hurt. Part of him wanted to just lay down and _grieve_ , but he couldn't. He couldn’t stand and stare into the deep, deep hole in what was meant to be his home. He couldn’t waste time hating himself for causing all this destruction.

Instead he painstakingly made his way into his lab, embracing the lingering sting in his healing chest and ribs. He compiled files of every incriminating thing Ross had done in his life and sent them to those who could--who would--lock him away. He coded, designed, and began production on a new Iron man suit, this time sleeker, with no gaps in which bugs could wriggle through, with multiple backup arc reactors, and coded it with Protocol Siberia to prevent himself from getting stranded again. He edited the amendments he wrote in the hospital, refined them, and planned how he would present them to the UN. He designed the water system that had been hovering on the edges on his brain for weeks now, and let FRIDAY run diagnostics.

But instead of solving equations in a distant part of his mind like he normally did, he was solving an entirely different problem. Once he set in motion all of the more pressing matters, he let himself create a new file.

_Project Salem._

Tony was used to pain. But he’d be damned if he let anyone hurt his children without consequences. After all, he might not be able to protect Vision, but he’d be damn sure to avenge him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..cause ya know. The Salem witch trials. Haha. Yeah anyway...  
>  I kinda want to turn this into a revenge fic where I make Wanda suffer like the little bitch she is, but I don't actually know how I would do that, so. I may add more to this later, but for now, I'm just going to leave the chapter count as it is.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of feeling about the fact that Vision and Wanda were dating in IW. I have an uncomfortable amount of experience with not being in control of my body (thanks psychosomatic paralysis) and if someone else were to force that kind of thing on me, you can bet your bitchass that I wouldn't want them within eyesight of me. It's not a forgivable thing to me. So the idea of their relationship sounds a l o t like a setup for abuse to me, or at least a power imbalance. Fuck that. Fuck Wanda. Vision deserves better anyway.


End file.
